The Doll House
1 Hunters and Gatherers
What to expect from a private dinner invitation? A lot, perhaps, but definitely not this.
The dinner was arranged through a mutual friend who insisted that I had to see this mans house. A week and a gracious invitation later, we met at his place. We cooked tempura, a spread of fried vegetables and fish.
2 The House
As my friend had mentioned before, the man married a sex doll. It turned out he wasn’t just married to one – he was an avid collector. Too shy to ask whether he was actually intimate with them, but I assumed he was, as many men in Japan reportedly follow this habit. Alongside his silicon girlfriends, his home featured an assortment of various peculiar gadgets, all meticulously arranged to recreate scenes of European fairy tales.
3 The Dolls
He must have amassed a collection of ten dolls in total.
These dolls are entirely manufactured in Japan by a company called Orient Industry. While the biggest market clearly is the domestic one, the dolls have gained increasing popularity in China, too. The number of costumers in Japan and China have grown steadily in the past years. The price for a single doll starts at ¥400,000. The company previously offered customised dolls with faces modelled after a provided reference, but this service was discontinued due to ethical concerns.
Once, the man told me, someone broke into his house at night and stole three of his dolls. Luckily, the thieve didn’t abduct the man’s wife.
